The present invention relates to mobile device networking, and more particularly to end-to-end Internet connections establishment.
A traditional cellular (e.g., wireless) telephone accesses its called party through a cellular network, which provides the traditional cellular telephone access to a circuit switched network (e.g., Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)), which is able to transport the voice traffic to the called party. The establishment and the maintenance of a circuit switched connection for the duration of the call is expensive.
Current technology developments in wireless communication provides mobile devices with IEEE 802.11 interfaces. IEEE 802.11 is a set of standards carrying out wireless local area network (WLAN) computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz frequency bands; they are implemented by the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802). At the same time the so called “hot spots”, i.e., areas where the Internet can be accessed via IEEE 802.11 connections, has proliferated in public places such as airports, hotels, homes and home offices, and so forth. Current IEEE 802.11 technologies have advanced to the point where coverage from a wireless router extends to miles or tens of miles.
The advances of IEEE 802.11 technologies and WiMAX promise wireless data coverage similar to the voice cellular coverage. Here, WiMAX refers to Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, which is a telecommunications technology that provides wireless transmission of data using a variety of transmission modes, from point-to-multipoint links to portable and fully mobile Internet access.
At the same time, advances in building mobile devices, smart phones and personal portable computers open unprecedented opportunities to develop networking solutions to the benefit of the end user of the basic services offered by the Internet.